


A Rusty Promise

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Complicated Relationships, Enemies to Friends, Feels and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Enemies, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 07:59:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1680725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tread joins Team Prime, he meets some new Human faces and reunites with some old Autobot ones. He's just ready to go into the field and unexpectedly encounters someone else, someone who was once a dear friend to him...</p><p>Now they're on separate sides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

Excruciating pain reverberated through Tread’s helm as he slowly returned from whatever darkness had captured him.

“Where am I?” he muttered, trying to lift his arms. His amber-bronze armor had been pulled back, he realized as he felt a number of cords threaded into his circuitry.

“ **Take it easy** ,” a voice soothed. “ **You’ve been in stasis for a while**.”

Tread tried to activate his optics, but nausea assaulted him and he offed them again. He had to settle for speaking. Hesitantly he turned his helm toward the sound of the buzzing. It was strange, but beneath all the static he was sure he recognized that voice...but it couldn’t be...

“Bumblebee?”

A quiet laugh sounded off to his left. “ **Hello again, Tread. It’s been a long time.** ”

Tread forced his optics online at that. His vision was still indistinct for a few more moments before he was able to see the familiar black and yellow scout standing by his berthside, smiling sympathetically.

“Bee, I thought you were offline,” Tread gasped. “Tiger Pax...”

“ **I thought the same about you when I was captured. After Megatron left me for scrap, a team found me and salvaged me,** ” Bumblebee explained, his face darkening slightly. “ **Well, most of me. You’ll never guess which medic patched me up. He’s here now, in fact!** ”

“Tread,” said medic acknowledged him warmly.

“Ratchet!” Mindful of the cords, Tread lifted himself onto his elbows and wiggled his fingers in greeting. He paused hopefully. “If you two survived, then the Cons haven’t won. They can’t have, not while Prime lives. So...”

“Welcome to Autobot Outpost Omega One, Tread,” Optimus smoothly answered the unspoken question as he approached.

“S-Sir,” Tread replied, stumbling a little over the word in his relief. A sudden, sharp pain in his backstrut made him sink back down onto the berth. “Omega One...We don’t have an outpost by that name on Cybertron.”

“ **It’s because...we’re not on Cybertron** ,” Bumblebee replied. “ **We’re on a planet populated by Humans. It’s called Earth.** ”

Tread’s vents hitched as his processor data suddenly came to life, scrawling across the back of his optics in a great stream of memory.

“There was an Insecticon at Tiger Pax,” he recalled in horror. “Caught me from behind. I fell off the platform.”

“You fell into a pod that was probably parked below,” Ratchet explained. “You probably hit the controls when you fell and set them for these coordinates. I tracked the signal and we found your pod.”

“You were always pure dead brilliant!” Tread praised, causing the older mech to smirk lightly. Tread swept the base with steady turquoise-green optics. “Is it just you three here?” he asked with a bit of uncertainty.

“ **No, Bulkhead and Arcee are on the team too,** ” Bumblebee reassured him.

Tread’s face lit up at the familiar names. “It’s been _ages_ since I’ve seen them! Where are they?”

Ratchet’s brows knit as he replied, “Picking up their charges from school.” The roaring of engines caught Tread’s audials at that moment and he looked to see his two old friends coming down one of the tunnels.

“Charges...?” he started to inquire, but as soon as two small, flesh-covered creatures came into his line of sight, he fell silent.

“Hi!” the female creature squealed, rushing over with a wide smile on her face. “What’s your name? When are you going to be up and around? Are you going to be staying long? Are you going to get your own human companion? What type of weapons do you use? How many Cons did you take out before you shut down?”

Tread winced and turned his body slightly toward Ratchet. “Good question, Miss...ah, Human. When _am_ I going to be up and around, good doctor?”

“When I deem fit,” Ratchet announced with a warning glance at the human female, who scowled back at him.

Tread nodded and offed his optics and audials, trying to set himself up for a decent recharge.


	2. Chapter 2

Knockout sulked as he snatched away the buffer from Breakdown and turned it on himself. This was usually his favorite pastime, but right now it was holding no joy for him. Breakdown noticed, as Knockout was deliberately making it hard not to.

“Alright, Knockout, what’s wrong?”

“Starscream is what’s wrong!” Knockout burst out, relieved that he could finally vent all his bundled feelings. “This ‘lord’ stuff of his is killing me. You should’ve heard Starscream when I got back from my drive earlier: ‘You’re late’.” Shaking his helm violently back and forth, Knockout sputtered, “Eurgh, if Soundwave wasn’t looking, I would have chopped that slaghead into a scrapheap!”

“Mm-hmm,” Breakdown hummed absently.

Venting deeply, Knockout questioned with a slightly crazed smile, “Maybe I’m just too sensitive?”

“Buff,” Breakdown ordered, grabbing his wrist and helping him along.

The warmth of the brush on Knockout’s armor calmed him for a whole of six klicks before he shoved the buffer at Breakdown, clapped his hands to his helm, and screeched, “Ooohh, that Starscream! I despise him; I _loathe_ him!”

“Never heard that one,” Breakdown commented as he moved Knockout forward so he could buff his left shoulder-plate.

“He thinks he can order me around,” Knockout snarled, “like some kind of...of...”

“Lowly CMO?” Breakdown supplied with a sad smile.

Knockout scoffed rudely. “I am _anything_ but lowly and he doesn’t even treat me like CMO, he treats me like—”

“Knockout,” Starscream barked as he entered the medbay. “You, Breakdown, and Airachnid are going to run an errand for me.”

Knockout clenched his teeth and growled to Breakdown in an undertone, “—an _errand boy_.” Plastering on a smile, Knockout knit his fingers together to avoid the temptation of punching Starscream and chirped, “And this errand is...?”

“Some of the humans have unearthed energon and I want you to go and retrieve it,” Starscream said simply, waving a hand dismissively as he called over his shoulder, “But do get on your way before the Autobots do.”

As soon as the medbay doors slid shut, Knockout seethed, “How dare that high-and-mighty seeker order me around?! He thinks that just because he’s got wings and I’ve got wheels that he...he owns me!”

“Wheels _are_ for rolling on the ground,” Breakdown reminded him carefully, “and that _is_ what we tend to do on missions.”

Knockout tried to find a comeback for that, but he couldn’t come up with anything that wouldn’t sound childish. He sufficed for glaring venomously and stalking to the other side of the room.

“Oh, Knockout.” Breakdown’s tone was something between scolding and pleading. “Don’t give me the silent treatment. We have to work together, remember? And if you’re going to get the energon for any reason, it’s that we don’t want the Bots getting it, right?”

“Well...I suppose,” Knockout muttered sullenly. At last he consented, “Fine. But if we run into the Autobots and I get damaged, I’m blaming it on you just because I’m not allowed to blame it on him.”

Breakdown shrugged, completely unthreatened. “It’s a deal.”

As soon as the doctor, his assistant, and Airachnid stepped through the space bridge, tailed by a group of Vehicons, Knockout knew they were too late. The Autobots had gotten here first and the green giant, Bulkhead, had chunks of energon in hand. The one good thing about that was it gave Breakdown a free shot with his hammer which sent Bulkhead flying back at least fifteen yards.

“Get the energon!” Airachnid shouted, her words making Knockout bristle. Again with the errand boy behavior! There was no time to deliver a retort, however, so he did as she said and bolted toward the precious blue mineral, which had flown quite a few yards to his left, away from the firefight ensuing.

 _At least at this distance I won’t get my paint scratched_ , Knockout thought fleetingly as he bent down to pick up one of the two chunks of energon. Another hand caught his, but Knockout’s dark growl cut off as his jaw fell in disbelief.

 

Tread had wanted to get back to work as soon as possible, had wanted to prove himself by helping to retrieve this precious resource. Ratchet had been reluctant to release him, but Tread had practically begged him, saying he wanted to make sure he wasn’t rusty by pommelling any Con who stood up to him.

The crimson optics staring back at him froze all of those thoughts. Tread knew the croak of his voice wasn’t due to his previous vent damage as he whispered, “Knockout?”

“Tread!” Knockout still couldn’t bring his jaw up between words. “You’re here...But Tiger Pax...I saw you fall!”

“Into a pod,” Tread finished, lowering his eyes to the vice-grip he had on Knockout’s wrist. After a long moment he released him and took a few steps back. Knockout recoiled also, gibbering uselessly.

“You came _here_?!” he cried when he could manage a coherent sentence.

“I crashed just a few orbital cycles ago,” Tread answered, swallowing hard. “I was badly damaged. This is my first time back in the field. How is it that _you_ didn’t pick up my pod’s signal?”

“Soundwave was juggling too many coordinates, Starscream ignored it, I don’t know. Frankly I don’t care about that. I just...can’t believe it’s actually you,” Knockout admitted breathlessly.

Drawing in a difficult vent, Tread noted heavily, “You’re still with the Decepticons.”

Knockout followed his gaze to the V-shaped sigil. “Yes. And you’re with the Autobots.”

“They brought me out of stasis,” Tread protested weakly. “I owe them for that.” He took a step forward but quickly retracted it when he saw Knockout stiffen. “K.O.,” Tread started, a plea edging into his voice. “We...we _need_ that energon.”

“So do we!” Knockout burst out. His free hand transformed into his standard saw, but it remained unmoving. “As a Decepticon, I have a—a _duty_ to kill you right here!”

Tread slowly lifted his arms, the twin turbo-cannons at his wrists powering up with a whine. “And I you,” he agreed, his tone thick with regret.

Knockout brought his saw up to the same height as Tread’s cannons, bringing it to life with a deep whir. They remained there, simply staring at each other with weapons poised—for how long, Tread didn’t know or care. Emotions were passing between their EM fields, meeting each other with equal grief at such a horrible fate.

The image of two sparklings tucked into an alleyway raced across Tread’s processor.

_“Are you sure we won’t be found?”_

_“Yes, I’m absolutely sure.”_

_“But if Sire sees my paint scratched again, he’ll send Carrier after me with a buffer! Not one of the soft kinds, the painful ones!”_

_“It’s alright, K.O. You don’t have to worry now that I’m your security officer! I’ll protect you.”_

Tread found it almost impossible to remain in control then. He could hear those voices as clearly as if the childhood playmates were standing right here on this battleground. In fact, they were, undisturbed by the fierce battle of the others several yards away.

When his optics finally started blurring, Tread hoped it was because of a leftover glitch Ratchet hadn’t caught yet. His arms shuddered unexpectedly and he hoped that was a glitch too. His vents heaved and his vocalizer filled with static and he was almost sure he was going to heave raw energon all over his own feet. Therefore it was surprising that Knockout was the one who gave in first, his arms dropping abruptly to his sides. The energon fell to the ground with a clunk, forgotten.

“I can’t do it,” Knockout moaned miserably, covering his face with his empty hands. “This was never supposed to happen!”

“We swore against this,” Tread lamented tremulously. “The Rust Pact!”

“‘We’ll be assumed enemies’,” Knockout recited shakily, “‘not traitorous friends’.”

Never breaking gaze with Knockout, Tread leaned down and picked up one of the two energon pieces between them. “‘We’ll be resolved enough to offer each other a chance for treachery...and refuse to take it’.”

“‘We’ll be strong enough to watch the other’s back as they trust enough to turn it. By the Allspark’,” Knockout finished faintly as he leaned down and picked up the other piece of energon. Tread nodded dejectedly at him before pivoting and walking in a daze toward the ground bridge that had opened for his team.


	3. Chapter 3

Knockout walked down the halls of the _Nemesis_ silently, hands tightly cupping the chunk of energon that he had escaped with.

The chunk he’d been _given_. Knockout leaned against the wall, pressing a hand over his optics.

None of this was fair. It had to be beyond coincidence that Tread had landed here on Earth, but what heartbreaking force had done it?!

The clinking of long metal legs made Knockout look up. Airachnid was standing in front of him, a frown darkening her features.

“Knockout,” she greeted him, her tone just less than friendly. “I have a question for you. When we were on the battlefield—”

“You need to mind your own business!” Knockout barked defensively.

Airachnid immediately bristled, leaning down into his face with a growl. “I saw you freely give mercy _and_ energon to that Autobot! If Lord Starscream heard about that, I’m sure his wrath on you would be swift. So give me one good reason not to tell him.”

Knockout met her gaze steadily. “I’ll give you five good reasons,” he growled, closing his right fingers and sounding off: “One, two, three, four, _five_.”

“Your threats are petty for a doctor,” Airachnid observed flatly. Knockout gasped as he was suddenly slammed against the wall, one of her legs pressing against his throat cables. “If you don’t want your precious paintjob torn to shreds, you’d better satisfy me.”

Knockout’s optics widened, a glaze of lubricant dimming their light at the familiar yet foreign words.

_“Leave him alone, Camshaft!”_

_“Stay out of it, Tread! This little lump needs a repaint!”_

_“I’m K.O.’s chief of security. If you have a concern with him, you consult me. I’m done sitting kindly by.”_

“So am I,” Knockout muttered. Airachnid stared at him in confusion for a moment before stumbling backward with a pained cry as her leg was halved.

“I wasn’t talking about my knuckles when I was counting off,” Knockout announced coldly. He gave the blade of his saw a leisurely spin, gently tapping each of the now-energon-stained grooves in the blade. “One, two, three, four, five,” he repeated gleefully.

Airachnid was in too much shock to retaliate and Knockout couldn’t help but chuckle as he strode away. “Do make an appointment and I’ll fix up that leg,” he called over his shoulder.

Once he reached the medical bay, his façade dropped and he slid to the floor, numbly rubbing away the stains on his weapon. It could have been Tread’s blood he was scrubbing away right now...

“But it’s not,” he reminded himself softly. “It’s not. I swore by the Allspark it would never be.”

 _Airachnid will tell Starscream now_ , he remembered with a start. _I’ll have to tell him...but, the slag that he is, he won’t understand the keeping of an oath made centuries ago. I’ll be extinguished for treason!_

When Breakdown entered the room, Knockout stood and approached him. Sensing that Knockout had something to say, Breakdown halted and Knockout stopped in front of him, craning his head back to look his assistant in the optics.

“I need your advice,” he sighed after a long hesitation.

Breakdown looked puzzled. “You never listen to me. Why—?”

“The Autobots have a new member,” Knockout interrupted. “Did you see him?”

“Oh, that bronzy orange one? Yeah, I saw him. Was going to take a swing or two at him, but I lost track of him. I can hurt him next time, eh?”

Knockout stood on his tiptoes to get as close to Breakdown’s face as he could get. “No! You won’t hurt him _ever_! And if you even think about trying, I promise you’ll find me hard to get through!”

Breakdown lurched back in surprise at his vehemence. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Knockout, what leaked in your neural net?! He’s an Autobot!”

“I don’t care! He protected me all through my sparklinghood and I swore that if we ever met on the field of battle that we would both walk away!” Knockout shouted. “And we will!” As always, Knockout turned and privately longed to walk away from _all_ of it...

 

Tread had noticed Bumblebee watching him ever since they had returned to base, literally humming with an unasked question. Tread had a fairly good idea what that question would be, so he ignored the scout and hoped he would let it go.

Of course he didn’t.

Tread sensed Bumblebee’s presence behind him and turned. “Whatever you need to ask me,” he said, trying to sound pleasant instead of threatened, “just ask it. I’m a team player now, so I’ll share.”

“ **Why did you spare Knockout?** ” Bumblebee asked almost before the words were out of Tread’s mouth.

Tread studied him for a moment before releasing a mirthless laugh. “When I was really young, I lived with my brother in the city of Simfur. I got along with everyone—well, almost everyone. There was this one mech called Camshaft, few centuries older than me. He was a like a retro-rat, almost _parasitic_. He thought we were all beneath him and spent all his time drinkin’ high-grade energon so he could have an excuse if anyone caught him mistreating us. Turns out _I_ caught him roughing up someone one time—tiny thing he was, just a sparkling! So after Camshaft left, I befriended the little lugnut and became something like a bodyguard to him.” Tread glanced meaningfully at Bumblebee. “That was Knockout.”

An expression of realization dawned on Bee’s face. “I **f you protected him for so long, I see why you wouldn’t want to hurt him now!** ”

“Yes,” Tread conceded, “But it’s not just because of that. Knockout and I agreed on a lot of things, but politics wasn’t one of them, as we would find out later. When...” He grimaced slightly even at the thought of speaking the name. “...Megatron rose to potential power, Knockout was all for following him. When I told him I chose to follow Orion Pax, he was...sullen. He told me this would change our lives in an unimaginable way and he couldn’t have been more right. The war began and we each bore different sigils. I couldn’t go back on my choice after Orion became Optimus Prime and Knockout didn’t dare change his mind with Megatron being such a cruel master. We didn’t have any outs, so we met secretly one night at a neutral zone and made the Rust Pact.”

Bumblebee stared at him blankly, just as Tread knew he would. “R-U-S-T: It stands for ‘Resolved unto Strength and Trust’. Even if we ran into each other on a battlefield, we wouldn’t hurt each other in any way. By our honor, by the Allspark, we would simply turn our backs and walk away.”

“ **But he was— _is_ a Decepticon** ,” Bumblebee sputtered. “ **Even their title means deceit! Why do you trust him to discount you?** ”

“Why does he trust _me_ to discount _him_?” Tread retorted, shrugging his broad shoulders. “I don’t fully understand it. I doubt I’ll ever fully understand what kind of relationship I have with him. It’s been long and full of complications.”

“ ** _Rusty_ , you mean,**” Bumblebee joked.

Tread managed to crack a smile at the pun, but it soon faded into a pensive frown. “I can tell he’s unhappy,” he murmured. “I don’t know why he doesn’t just leave them.”

“ **Maybe he’s been cowed into staying,** ” Bumblebee replied somberly. “ **Like you said, the Cons have cruel masters. They won’t let their CMO disappear on a whim. In fact, I think he’s safer on the ship than not. Megatron needs him and if he were to leave, he would become a liability because of the information he knows.** ”

Tread shook his head regretfully. “I’m just used to being who he goes to for safety, you know? Now Megatron and Starscream have him right where they want him, relying on them for his life. The problem is that it’s hardly a life. He could be so much more; they all could.”

“ **Maybe that’s why Optimus is always reaching out to them,** ” Bumblebee mused. He squinted a bit, looking Tread up and down. “ **You’re like him, you know. I can imagine you as a Prime.** ”

Tread gasped, shaking his head vigorously back and forth. “Never! That honor is only worthy of someone—”

“ **—someone who is protective, compassionate, reliable, and humble?** ” Bumblebee finished, crossing his arms expectantly. “ **In short, ‘resolved to strength and trust’?** ”

Tread opened his mouth to come up with a protest but had none. If this war ended someday, if he and Knockout both came out of it, he would have to tell him about this...


End file.
